Nick’s Second Visit To The Allergist

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On Friday Nick had his one year follow up visit with the allergist.  I can hardly believe that it has already been a year since we first went.  It’s even harder to believe that it has been well over a year since that fateful Sunday that I fed Nick a scrambled egg.

As Friday got closer I got increasingly nervous.  I honestly don’t know what I was so nervous about.  The worst that was going to happen was that they would tell me that Nick still had an egg allergy.  For awhile now I have become increasingly hopeful that we would see a sign that his allergy was improving, and I suppose I was worried that wouldn’t happen.  I think my fear actually extended from my increasing worry over the entire experience.  Last year Nick screamed through it.  He also screamed so loudly at his two year well visit that I still can’t believe that our entire town didn’t hear him.  Are you seeing the pattern here?  I also didn’t want to see him go through the scratch test and a possible blood draw again. I actually have terrible memories of a scratch test that I had as a kid, and I hate having to put Nick through it.  In the end though it turned out that I had mostly been worrying for nothing.

Our appointment had been scheduled for 3:00.  We arrived right on time, and we had hardly sat down in the waiting room when they were calling us back.  That seemed like a great sign, but no such luck.  They first weighed and measured Nick, and both seemed off.  Nick weighed in at 24lbs, which was a lot of weight gain for him since he was 23lbs 8.5oz a little over a month ago (and he gains slowly).  He had a hard time standing by himself on the scale, and he was pulling on me, so I’m thinking the scale took a little of my weight.  No big deal though.  Then they tried to measure him standing up.  As the nurse lowered the shelf to figure out his height he scrunched his head into his shoulders.  The nurse proudly announced he was 32inches, but he was 34 inches at his well visit, so that really didn’t seem right to me.  She ended up laying him down on the table to measure him as well and he was 33 and something inches (she didn’t give me the exact).

After the nurse left we waited for 30 minutes before the doctor arrived.  Nick was being so good that I could hardly believe it.  He just happily played his games on my tablet.  I think I was far more antsy than he was.  When the doctor came in we discussed all of Nick’s information.  I told him how we had tested him for a peanut allergy and others.  He said that the head doctor was there that day and while he would have to clear things with that doctor, but he didn’t think another scratch test was needed since it only shows whether Nick has an egg allergy or not, and it’s not 100% reliable.  He did want Nick to have his blood drawn again so they could look at his numbers to each part of the egg to see if his allergy is improving.  His hope is that it has improved enough that we can start slowly adding eggs back into Nick’s diet.  He said we would start with things that had baked eggs in them (cooked at 350 for at least 30 minutes), and slowly move up from there.

Once he was gone we were left alone for another very long period of time.  We went through every book in the room and Nick killed the battery on the tablet.  I eventually took Nick out of the room and walked him up and down the halls because he was so antsy.  Finally the doctor, and the head doctor, came back to see us.  It was agreed that no scratch test was needed which I was grateful for (especially since that takes quite a bit of time and we had already been there for an hour and a half).

What I found most interesting was that the head doctor asked me right out if Nick had gotten his flu shot.  I told him that his doctor had been on leave in the fall and the nurse practitioner we had seen had refused to give it to him due to his egg allergy.  The head doctor got so annoyed at that.  Seems he had been on the team that had researched whether the flu shot is safe for those with egg allergies and they found that it was (not the nose spray though).  I had read that report, so I had been shocked when they had refused to give Nick the shot.  The head doctor told me that if they refuse next time to have them call the allergist’s office, and if they still wouldn’t give him the shot to bring Nick to the allergist’s office and they would give it to him.  The doctor said that the only reason for Nick not to have the shot was if we wanted him to get the flu.

So now we wait for the blood results.  Our appointment had gone so long that we had to go to two places to find a lab that was still open to get Nick’s blood drawn.  He flinched and whimpered when they did it, but overall he was so good.  I promised him that we would get him something special since he had been such a good boy (we got him a Matter car that drives backwards on his own).  I can’t believe that we went through all of that to still not know anything.  Keep your fingers crossed that the blood results look good and we can start reintroducing egg to Nick’s diet.  I’ll be sure to update everyone when we know something.